The California Coastal Commission voted Friday to allow former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife to move forward with plans to raze their La Jolla (San Diego County) beachfront home and replace it with an 11,000-square-foot mansion.

The Romneys, who did not appear at the San Diego hearing, purchased the 3,000-square-foot home in 2008 for $12 million. The lot sits above a cove that is one of the choicest beaches in La Jolla.

"My clients are looking forward to building a house where they can have fun with their kids and grandkids," said their attorney, Matthew Peterson, who represented the couple at the hearing.

The city of San Diego had approved the Romneys' plans for a two-story home, with a massive, 4,500-square-foot basement, but a former neighbor challenged the permit, claiming it did not conform with the city's local coastal plan, which is enforced by the Coastal Commission.

Anthony Ciani, an architect who lived across the street from the Romneys, said the couple inflated the allowable size of their home by wrongly claiming to own the sandy beachfront west of their seawall. Adding 6,000 square feet of sand allowed them to build a structure that was more than 1,000 square feet bigger than would otherwise have been permissible under city guidelines, he said. Ciani also claimed that they had privatized a public walkway on the north side of their home and that the property's seawall would not withstand storms.

In a report prepared for Friday's meeting, San Diego city staff and Coastal Commission staff rejected his claims. According to city maps, they said, the Romneys owned the beach in front of their home. They said the disputed walkway was private property, and that the seawall was suitable protection for the home.